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Newspaper Archive of
Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
August 24, 2023     Shelton Mason County Journal
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August 24, 2023
 
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Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023 Shelton-Mason County Journal — Page 5 The importance of ballot signatures n our current election system, your signature on your ballot return envelope is of utmost impor— tance. Your signature affirms the declaration printed on the envelope that under pen- alty of perjury you meet the qualifications to vote and you have not voted in any other jurisdiction in that election. The declaration also informs voters that it is illegal to vote if they are not a United FROM THE States citizen; are incarcer- ated for a felony conviction; and that it is illegal to cast a ballot or sign a ballot dec- laration on behalf of another voter. A person willfully Violating these provisions is guilty of a class C felony. When your ballot arrives LETTERS TO THE Bay at risk Editor, the Journal, I am a newer resident to Mason County and live nearby Oakland Bay. Part two of the hearing continued this last week and I must say, of all the information Taylor Shellfish Co. has either presented in its application for their proposed 50—acre industrial aquaculture and now production site in Oakland Bay, to me, is shocking in the abundance of misinformation and half—truths, unknowns and incomplete or minimized information. In my opin— ion, the lack of facts surrounding the whole project leaves our community’s Oakland Bay at even more risk than I first understood. Please go to the Ma— son County website and listen to the hearings decide for yourself. We all have to agree Oakland Bay’s ecosystem is still healing from decades of corporate abuse and privatization of Oakland Bay in favor of Taylor Shell- fish would further exploit the natural resource we all should be able to enjoy through recreation, its natural beauty and our shared access to it. Fu1ther, we learned during the hearing, should the time come when Taylor Shellfish determines a sale of the business is in its best interest, all of the aquaculture leases they hold would transfer to the new owner foreign or domestic. That’s a whole lot of aquatic real estate in the Puget Sound that could potentiallybe in the hands of a stranger. The folks I have met, who reject the Taylor proposal for a DNR lease of 50 acres of the deepest water in Oakland Bay, simply want to protect the ecosys- tem that exists in the bay so genera— tions from now, it can still be enjoyed in its most natural state.We hope you will send pictures of your special views of the bay to l.viscusi@masoncounty— wagov for submission to the hearing examiner and join us in keeping Oak— land Bay clear of privatization. Ginny Douglas Shelton Not entitled Editor, the Journal, At the heating on Wednesday, Aug. 9, a college girl whose family is em— ployed there angered me. Calling us AUDITOR at the Elections Depart— ballot received is yours. The signature on the outside of the ballot return envelope is compared with the signa- ture on file in the voter reg- istration database for each voter, and a determination is made whether the signatures match. A variation between the signatures resulting from the substitution of initials or the use of a common nick- name is OK if the surname and handwriting are clearly the same. If you are unable to sign your ballot envelope, signatures. The answer is, “N o.” In situations where sig- natures do not match, or the ballot envelope is unsigned, elections staff immediately prepare and send letters to the voter requesting an up— date to “cure” the mismatch with a signature that match— es the one on the envelope. Additional attempts at voter follow-up are made by tele- phone and email. If a voter does not respond, the ballot envelope remains unopened, election posted on the audi- tor’s website: masoncounty— waelectionsgov/previous— elections~results—data. For your vote to count, your ballot must pass signa— ture verification. This is why it’s a good idea to check your signature on file in the voter registration database with a quick visit to the Vote Cen- ter. Starting with the N o— vember 2023 General Elec- tion, human signature verifi- cation will be facilitated with a new ballot envelop scan— ment, elections staff trained to state standards examine your signature on the en— velope declaration prior to processing the ballot. It is the one piece of informa- tion that verifies that the you can affirm the envelope declaration with another type of mark witnessed and signed by two other people. I am often asked, is there a way to verify the identity of people who provide witness the ballot is not counted, and a determination is made by the canvassing board prior to election certification. You can find statistics for the number of ballots with uncured signatures in an ning and sorting machine. The process will be more viewable for election observ- ers. Hope to see you then. I Steve Duenkcl is the Mason County auditor The Shelton-Mason County Journal encourages original letters to the editor of local interest. Diverse and varied opinions are welcome. We will not publish letters that are deemed libelous or scurrilous in nature. We reserve the right to reject any letter for any reason. When submitting a letter, please observe the following guidelines: Writers are limited to one original letter plus one rebuttal or counter—rebuttal per calendar month; letters should be no more than 300 words; letters will be edited for grammar, spelling, style, clarity and length. Priority will be given to local opinion and topics. Letters about national politics and topics will run on a space-available basis; The Journal Letter Policy weekly deadline is 5 pm. Monday. Letters received after that time will run in the following’week’s edition. All letters must be signed and include the writer’s name, physical address and daytime phone number, which will be used for verification purposes only. To submit a letter, email it to editor@masoncounty. 'com. Please type your letter directly into the email or attach a Word document. Letters submitted via external links or cloud drives will not be opened. You may also drop it off at 227 W. Cota St, or mail it to PO. Box 430, Shelton, WA 98584. Due to time r constraints, the publication of handwritten or typed letters may be delayed. the entitled people because we enjoyed kayaking and boating in the bay. She could not do that because of her social economic status. We all have worked hard our entire lives. We earned this. She is way more entitled than I was at that age. She has a mother and a fa- ther. My mom raised all five of us girls by herself with no help from anyone. She worked as a nurse, picking up any overtime she could get. I couldn’t go to college because we couldn’t afford it, no grants or scholarships. I went to tech school all day and worked waiting tables at night. I have been working since I was 12, working in the fields of rural Minnesota in the hot sun or cold rain. There were times I worked three jobs at once. It took me 45 years to get here. Just because she doesn’t look like the rest of us doesn’t mean we didn’t earn our way to have waterfront. Taylor wants to take our waterways for profit and give back nothing. This will be the largest production in the world on our little beautiful bay. Katherine Clark Shelton Constituents’ wishes Editor, the Journal, I don’t care whether Taylor Shellfish puts a floating oyster bag farm in Oak land Bay. I do care whether the county commissioners uphold their responsiu bility as representatives of the people. Interest in Taylor Shellfish’s pro— posed project is so high that four hours was not enough time to hear all public comments at a hearing on the matter. Mason County Hearing Examiner Phil Olbrechts was there to remind every- one that their opinions do not matter. He said it was a quasi—judicial hearing, so all that matters is whether the proj— ect meets code. Perhaps that was true for that par— ticular hearing. But when a final deci— sion is made, the will of the people is by far more important than whether the project meets code. Our representative form of gov— ernment is not working very well at the state or national level, but we can make it work locally. We’re fortunate to still have a local newspaper carry- ing out its role as government watch- dog, enabling us to be an informed citizenry. Kudos to the people who showed up to carry out their civic duty as citizens of Mason County. The county commis— sioners must now cariy out their civic duty: to discover and implement the wishes of their constituents. Teresa Tsalaky Shelton Editor’s note: Charles Flanagan is Steuens’ campaign manager Vote for Stevens Editor, the Journal, Marcia Hamilton wrote and dispar— agingly accused Superior Court can— didate Dave Stevens of strong biases. As his campaign manager, I think it’s important that voters know Dave’s biases. He believes very strongly that the role of the courts is to protect the rights of the accused and to protect the safety of victims and the com- munity. He strongly feels that Cadine Ferguson—Brown’s embrace of equity rather than equality undermines con- fidence in our justice system. See her panel participation in the Race and Equity Summit 2023 put on by the Up From Slavery Initiative. Check out ufsi.org to see what their goals and bi— ases are. Ms. Hamilton also refers to Dave’s interview by the Board of Okanogan County Commissioners. That interview was done because the elected prosecutor had abruptly resigned. As chief criminal deputy prosecutor, Mr. Stevens was over- whelmingly endorsed by the precinct committee officers to fill in the vacant position. I encourage you to listen to the interview. You can find the in— terview at youtu.be/p7jj34kthc. An unbiased View of that interview shows that Mr. Stevens has very strong'feel— ings about criminals being held ac— countable, if convicted. He has strong feelings about protecting the commu— nity. It certainly doesn’t show that he has no interest in civil law. Ms. Hamil— ton is correct in two things: 1) Cadine F erguson—Brown was appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee. Inslee clearly felt that she shares his vision of how our judi~ ciary should be constituted and 2) she is overwhelmingly endorsed by other judges appointed by Jay Inslee. Dave on the other hand is overwhelmingly endorsed by Mason County law en- forcement officers. Ask the officers you know who they are voting for and why. Vote for a judge who will be fair, firm and just. Vote for Dave Stevens. Charles Flanagan Shelton ' GE! award-winning IIBWS llBIlllBl'ell l0 llfllll‘ mailbox Bilva Thursday. ' 3160—4264412"!wise-linen“! __